confused a little..

.. about why most models are locked ? I'm not pointing out or picking on any one individual, I just want to make that abundantly clear. I constantly see notices that state " do not upload to other sites blah blah blah, under penalty of blah blah blah".
I get it, some of you work very hard on your mods.. and some of you... don't. but this brings me to my point. 99% of the car mods on here are ripped from another game or another source. so saying "I built this" is kind of, well, not even close to accurate. it kind of comes back to the whole T2 thing.
T2 didn't want people messing with thier stuff. and rightfully so. this is how they make money. nobody here is making money off of mods. hopefully. you swiped the model from another source, then you have the balls to lock up someone else's work that you changed however slightly and now claim it as your own. seems a little assbackwards to me.

the whole point is to make "mods" here, but then people upload stuff that you can't mod and threaten "legal action" if you do( which I find hilarious btw ). idk, I've done mods before for other games and always shared them freely. once it leaves my hands, I don't care what you do to it.

It just seems slightly wrong to me. but then that's not an issue for me anymore. remember kids, anything that can be locked, can be unlocked.

First of all, modders have the right to lock their models if we want. It's our prerogative, and if you don't like it too bad. Now, I generally don't lock models that I work on, but if I wanted to it would be my right.

That said, your view is rather simplistic. Lots of models are actually purchased for quite a bit of money from 3D model sites. I've spent over $300 on various models. So to say they're just "swiped" from another source isn't accurate. Also, something tells me you haven't done much modeling, or if you have you probably haven't made very detailed models, because if you had you'd know just how much damn work it is. It actually takes a lot of effort to convert a model from scratch, especially if the model source is from some 3D model site and not from another game. Things like UV mapping, setting up proper LODs, enabling all the features to work right like lights, dials, seat positions, etc... it all takes a lot of work. If you think the changes are "slight" then you have no appreciation for how much work goes into making a good mod.

Anyways, nobody owes you anything. The other reason people lock models is because self-entitled people show up, take unlocked models, actually change only one little thing, and claim it as their own amazing invention. Similar to what you're describing, but more true, because somebody already did the hard work of converting it to GTA and they're just adding 1 little change or something. And then that person goes and either claims they did all the work... or worse yet, they make some abomination out of the original model, completely mess it up, no LODs, glitches, and it causes crashed for people. This makes the original modder look bad if they're listed in the credits, and it's rude if they aren't in the credits, so it's a lose-lose proposition.

I agree that it would be nice to have more unlocked models. And some people do release unlocked models, which is great. But nobody owes you anything, and people like you who don't appreciate how much effort and money go into making good mods are exactly why so many lock their models.